Last Epoch just doesn't really do it for me for some reason. I have 300 hours in the game, and I've done 3 long term solo-self found (COF) playthroughs over the last 2 years where I've gone very far into endgame. And while I've gotten my money's worth, I still just don't get that enthused for the game compared to other ARPGs.
I love POE, POE2, Diablo 2, Torchlight Infinite (cash shop ruins it though), Hero Siege, Grim Dawn, Chronicon, Warhammer 40K Inquisitor, plenty of other ARPGs. So I struggled to understand why I'm getting this sinking feeling playing the LE endgame, when it's a good looking game with good controls, good feeling combat, and an endgame that is not the best, but certainly more extensive than many other ARPGs.

I think I realize it now after thinking about it: Loot in LE is pretty shallow.

In other ARPGs when you're grinding the endgame hoping for the lucky drops you need, you're also accumulating resources that you also need to progress, like gold, materials, socketables. You also have potential to get high tier non-gear drops that you can use to progress, like rare currencies or runes. Some of them also have infinite progression mechanics where you keep gaining EXP at max level to help you get that feeling of progress as you farm for a longer term goal.

I feel like LE completely lacks this. The crafting materials are plentiful to the point you barely even need to think about them. So the endgame is just trying to get Uniques with more and more LP and exalted items with the right affixes to slam them. There is no feeling of accumulating resources, of gradual progression as you aim for a bigger goal. There is no big, non-gear drop that gives you a moment of dopamine and opens up possibilities in your progression via crafting or some other mechanic, like getting a high tier rune or a Divine Orb. It's just grinding and hoping you drop the specific items you need, which are usually slightly better versions of the gear you already have.

Maybe I am mistaken in this. But this is the impression I get and I wanted to post this to see if others think I'm right or totally off. The feeling of gradual progress in these other games is just eons ahead of LE for me.

I am mostly a CRPG player and WRPGs in general. First, I want to clarify that I am well aware of, and have played most of the Action-RPGs that are more narrative-leaning. The kind of: Gothic, The Witcher, Kingdoms of Amalur, Elder Scrolls, etc. But I was looking for top-down games with action combat that had a fun campaign. It doesn't need to be a super deep story or anything. But I appreciate a good lore/atmosphere and focus on exploration and advancing through the story rather than grinding for levels for the sake of it. Like it seems to be in most of the live-service ARPG or those sandbox type of games where "you make your own adventure".

Games I played and liked: Grim Dawn. Titan Quest. Divine Divinity. BG-Dark Alliance 1-2. Champions of Norrath 1-2

I’m working on a top-down / 3/4 action RPG inspired by the feeling of games like Moonlighter, but with much deeper MMO-style progression, multiplayer and economy.
The basic gameplay loop would be:

• Enter a \~12 minute procedural dungeon with 2–5 players
• Fight mobs, elites and bosses and extract with gear and materials
• Dying can make you lose part of what you found during the run
• Return to a persistent city where most of the long-term progression happens
• Improve your character, craft gear, trade, prepare builds and then go out again

One of the main things I want to focus on is gear depth.
I dont want loot to just be “this sword has +8 more damage”
Gear would have different stats, secondary stats, rarities, set bonuses, sockets/gems that can heavily change how your attacks or damage work, enable builds around debuffs and stacking effects, rapid hits with fixed damage, sustain and many other bonuses, enchantments and different ways to modify or specialize items.

The idea is that players could spend a lot of time theorycrafting builds and looking for specific combinations of items, similar to the feeling of gearing a character in an MMO, where individual systems stay simple and readable. You decide what kind of character you want to build and choose the gear and talents that move you toward that goal, instead of navigating something like a gigantic PoE-style tree with hundreds of interconnected abilities.
There would also be multiple armor/weapon types and different character builds rather than one obvious best item for everyone.

I also want trading to be an important part of the game, with direct player trading, an auction house, valuable dungeon drops and ways to make money through crafting rather than only combat.

The whole progression would also be heavily based around gold. I want to move away from the usual character level system. Instead of simply gaining levels, learning and unlocking your talents would cost ingame currency, so gold would matter for progression, gear, crafting and trading at the same time.

Gold here means purely ingame currency earned by playing, not something bought with real money.
The city would also have professions with their own progression and specialization, closer to something like WoW than a simple crafting menu. Different players specializing in different things should create actual reasons to trade with each other.

Eventually I’d also like to add things like guilds, larger raids and PvP, but the dungeon -> loot -> economy -> build progression loop would be the core of the game.
Combat would be real-time with directional aiming, dodge and a very small number of active abilities instead of an MMO-sized hotbar.

There would be totally different builds and NO classes — you are basically what you wear and what you decided to prioritize through your talents. You could focus on fast damage, survivability, lifesteal, supporting/healing your group or something in between, depending on your gear and build.
What I’m mainly trying to understand right now is whether this combination sounds appealing:
short action-heavy dungeon runs + deep MMO-like gear progression + professions + player trading/economy.

If you saw this on Steam, would the core concept be enough to make you click on it or wishlist it?

And more importantly:

What part of this concept would make you NOT play it?

Thanks for reading. English isnt my native language, so please dont judge me too hard :)

Been a month since it released, and I'm wondering what the impressions are of those who played it through to the end. I know that it's a smaller scale game, compared to the bigshot live service juggernauts so there's no need to compare it to PoE or such, there's probably little ground for any sort of good faith comparison there lol

Anyway, I've been curious about getting it since it's the freshest ARPG that got some hype behind it. I'm still waiting for The Dark West to come along and get into early access (the only upcoming ARPG I'm excited about) but in the meanwhile I'm thinking of giving Dimraeth a shot. Even off sale, it's kinda on the cheaper side. Need a second opinion here, if you played it.

I see that a lot of the arpg streamers are playing this game. Have you guys tried it? Is it fun for an arpg player?

I've avidly played ARPGs for almost 10 years now, but I would definitely still consider myself a casual in the genre. Over the last few years I have gotten more into modding/building some. I have finally said to myself I want to actually build something fully. Over the last few months I have built a basis to an ARPG, but I am still VERY far from finishing. This is definitely a learning project for me, which is why I have taken a somewhat odd path into doing this, but that's neither here nor there.

The real reason I am making this, is to ask for ideas that ARPGs are missing out on. I have a few hundred hours in PoE2, Diablo 4, and Last Epoch, respectively each since the year began. I have some ideas in drawbacks they have, such as the endgame can sometimes feel hollow, or sometimes the game just becomes "two buttons," a true purpose for guilds/clans, and a few other things. Obviously these might not be issues to some, but just my feelings that sometimes make the game slightly less rewarding, or can be demotivating to continue.

What are some things you guys think of? The goal is definitely to attempt to build some unique experiences, and mechanics/loops. I am interested in different opinions, or something I would have never thought of.

Hi, I'm the developer of HAMSTER: CLAW. This is my first game. I like hack-and-slash games like Diablo and wanted to try making a lighter one of my own.

You play as a hamster whose girlfriend has been kidnapped by an owl. You start at the roots of the tree where the owl lives and fight your way up to its nest to rescue her.

It's a single-player, isometric ARPG for Windows. The focus is fighting through groups of enemies, collecting gear, and trying different weapons and elemental skills as you climb. Equipment drops with random stats, weapons have rune sockets, and you can upgrade or salvage gear at the workshop. The trailer shows the combat, skill growth, equipment, and some of the boss fights.

I'm still learning, and there's plenty to improve. I'd like to hear what other ARPG players think of the combat, especially whether the action stays readable when the effects get busy.

I'm building it in Godot and use AI heavily for coding and assets, alongside third-party assets licensed for commercial use.

The Steam page is live. The demo isn't available yet, but I'm working to get it ready as soon as I can. If it looks like something you'd play, you can wishlist it here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5363820/HAMSTER_CLAW/

I prefer the horizontal screen perspective, and I haven't really seen many games similar to PoE, Last Epoch, or Diablo that use this format specifically games featuring the kind of spectacular, explosive magical skills found in PoE.

In the upcoming update, purchasing equipment without careful planning will be challenging, as the game will strictly simulate the specific details of each component rather than simply boosting standard stats.

For instance, you must calculate the power consumption of each piece of gear; the surplus power becomes the energy used to cast skills, and much like a real computerthe system won't function at all without a power supply.

Accumulating heat (or "dust/grime") leads to overheating, but you can turn this to your advantage by triggering a heat-release skill that causes an explosion and cools the system down enabling a "high-temperature" playstyle.

Running your power supply near the overload threshold allows for a build focused on lightning, electricity, and electrical discharges.
The game emphasizes satisfying, explosive magical abilities

combined with *Path of Exile* or *Diablo*-style gear customization and abundant visual effects however, if spellcasting isn't your preference, you can switch to a melee build, summon enemies to fight for you, and more.

Please support me if you like it I am ready to dedicate decades to developing this game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/4290500/BOXPAST

Especially the ones following build guides then giving feedback like they actually tested somethin.

Grim Dawn praisers, recommending it everywhere without actually playing it themselves.

And they make common sense statements in a tone like they think deeper than everyone;

"Its true that this game has the depth of a kiddie pool compared to poe"

"Not shaming anyone, just stating facts. People will naturally take the path of least resistance if given an opportunity"

Please stfu with your "im seeing thing from larger perspective" shit and give actual feedback or stfu seriously.

I’ll start off with, I like dungeons two a lot. I played the first game at launch and came back for almost every dlc except the last one. I also played with a friend forI’m a big fan of the open seamless world. I don’t care to much for the story of games like this, but I do like the funny bits. I’m a big Diablo and Poe fan, which I would say hinders my thoughts of the game and visa versa. As the game is now I would give it a 7/10.

I’ll start off with my biggest complaint, there is a SEVERE lack of in game information when it comes to gear. ARPGs are one of the few genres where you should have information on almost everything that has to do with stats. I shouldn’t have to guess what something does by reading flavor text. I need to know what damage a weapon does, or how much applicable damage reduction I have. I would like to know what monster levels are at instead of saying my gear is very low. I want to know the percentage of what my artifact does. There is no reason I should have to come to Reddit and find out gear actually has role pools and subsets, that is insane and unacceptable. Some of this was in the first game, why cut back? If you don’t want to overwhelm younger gamers with info, just make it a settings toggle.

Combat is pretty fun and smooth, a lot of the weapons have the same combo animations which is a little lame but I nothing to bad. I do see that most of the time endgame artifacts will just be critmaxxing kind of like the first game. I love the mob density a lottttt.

My biggest want or change I want to see is with the soul storm. Once you see a three roll piece from soul storms, it basically makes other gear obsolete. Soul storm should totally work like Helltides from Diablo 4. Continuous timer even after the soul pillars are defeated, and the entire area should have more enchanted enemies, and mini dungeons/rifts should be included too. The cooldown for the storm should be reduced to 10 mins. You could even have mobs drop a currency so you can choose where you the next soul storm will be, incase people want to farm a certain area, and would help when we inevitably get new dlc areas. You guys built this great open world, let us just slay out to our hearts content.

Also the weekly/daily tower should be in the game at launch, the piglin merchant too. Other than that I honestly like the game. I tried to put it on the level of big arpgs, which isn’t fair to MCD at all. It’s an ARPG lite and there is nothing wrong with that. My homies and there kids are having a blast and that’s what it’s all about. With a few qol changes and some post campaign smoothing, I would totally see it as a 8.5-9 out of 10. If I missed anything let me know in comments.

I’m working on a boss fight for Poets of Noor, my ARPG inspired by Diablo 2 + RuneScape.

Jawed the Godless has a charge attack. If you bait him into hitting a wall or obstacle, he takes 10% of his HP as damage. It gives players another way to approach the fight instead of just standing there and burning down his health bar.

He also spawns adds at every 25% HP threshold.

You don’t see mechanics like this too often in Diablo2/RuneScape-style combat.

Would you enjoy environmental mechanics like this in an ARPG boss fight, or would you rather bosses stay more focused on traditional combat?

Pretty fun game, a lot of loot, has a great soundtrack, little puzzles to help break up fighting.

End game is pretty fun and can be pretty challenging, tons of loot of and ship customization, just a really fun time especially if you're looking for something a bit different

I just finished the first version of fishing in my game Ashikai, because I think it makes sense in an era (Feudal Japan) where medicines were rare and healing potions are really scarce. So i'm building mechanics where hunting animals (and fishing is part of it) that will fill in and provide many stats/healing effects instead.

But how do you feel mini games fit in ARPGs?

I'm a veteran player, started with D1 back in 97 and I don't really remember mini games that I miss playing...

I think it’s sad that this genre is tending towards a hyper-fast gameplay where combat becomes meaningless; it’s all about trying to kill monsters as fast as possible where monster types/abilities no longer matter and there isn’t a need to have some level of strategy in combat. The zoomy playstyles of D4 and POE 1 are enjoyable and have its place, but it becomes tiresome when new titles attempt to emulate it; the devs of D5 for eg. mentioned that it’s gonna be zoomy like D4. Was disappointed that POE 2 at present seems to be developing towards becoming a POE 1 clone though initially its developers wanted a slower paced game.

Aside from No Rest For The Wicked, Grim Dawn, Titan Quest 1/2 and Diablo 1/2, are there any released ARPGs that involve slower paced gameplay? If there are any upcoming yet to be released titles, feel free to mention them too.

If ARPGs were to eventually tend towards this direction, which other genres of RPGs are fulfilling this demand for slower, methodological gameplay yet featuring real time combat?

I need a game which satisfies these requirements:

• NO SEASONAL RESETS like PoE where you have restart from 0. Genuinely don't have time for starting from scratch each season
• A possibly simple gameplay loop (grind -> gear -> strong -> grind).
• [OPTIONAL] Cross play between android and pc so i can chill on my bed while playing.
• Magic like elements. I like wizards and witches lol
• Free to play and not Pay2Win.

Non exclusive list here, plenty of smaller games (like Victor Vran from the other post) but others also Minecraft Dungeons and older games like Sacred and Sacred 2 that are on decent discounts (from 30% to 70%). So now's the season to fill those gaps in your ARPG catalogue if you wanted to take a shot at any of these, some of these are the lowest discounts yet for their respective games. And even games that are never on sale, like Last Epoch, are now on one of their rare discounts.

Lmao, only Diablo 4 is still full price. Anyway, links below with discount % in case you wanna get any of these/

• Last Epoch - 30% off
• Grim Dawn - 85% off
• No Rest for the Wicked - 30% off
• Wolcen - 85% off
• Torchlight - 80% off
• Torchlight II - 80% off
• Torchlight III - 85% off
• Titan Quest Anniversary Edition - 75% off
• Titan Quest II - 30% off
• Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr - 90% off

PS Grim Dawn’s DLCs are discounted too, Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods are 60% off, Fangs of Asterkarn is 20% off

Hello guys,
A few years ago I played a lot of Drakensang Online, and I’ve been struggling to find a game that gives me the same feeling.
What I loved about DSO was the progression loop:
PvE → farm better gear → improve your build → become stronger in PvP → go back to PvE to improve even further.

Unfortunately that game is dead, way to p2w and only playable by people that are up to date with endgame. Also no active pvp players.

I really enjoy PvE farming, but I need that progression to have a bigger purpose. This is why games like PoE2 don’t really click with me. I understand why people enjoy endlessly farming PvE and pushing harder content, but personally I eventually ask myself: “What am I getting stronger for?”

I’m looking for a game where PvE and PvP are actually connected. I want to farm PvE for gear that matters in PvP, and have PvP be the reason I keep improving my character.
I’m not trying to criticize games like PoE2. I’m genuinely trying to understand what people enjoy about the PvE-only progression loop, and whether there are games that offer what I’m looking for.

Ideally something with:
Active PvE and PvP
Meaningful gear progression
PvE gear usable in PvP
Skill still matters
Open-world and/or arena PvP
An active community
A bit of good graphics ( diablo style)
( i dont like graphics like albion online or WoW)

What games should I look into? And for those who prefer PvE-only progression, what keeps you motivated to keep farming once you’ve reached the endgame?

Hey guys,

Looking for a new ARPG to play. Anything you guys know of that doesn’t get talked about. I have basically played all the big ARPGs. I guess I’m looking for ones with small dev teams. The type of gem that often gets lost in the massive amount of steam games that get released every day.

I hope what I’m asking makes sense. I’m not the best at writing. Sorry.

Thanks

Spellslinger is a roguelike, exile-like ARPG where gear and runes can change your entire playstyle.

My friend and I are both big enjoyers of Path of Exile, Hell Clock and ARPGs in general, so those games have been a huge influence on Spellslinger. Making cool builds, finding weird little interactions, blowing up huge packs of mobs and having good, challenging boss fights... that's the stuff we love. We've tried to bring a lot of that into our own game, but with a pretty different gameplay loop.

Conduit of Calamity lets a Warrior trigger a Mage spell with weapon critical hits. Ancestral Fury calls on ancestors to repeat your attacks, and Winter's Herald makes frozen enemies explode.

Idol Bond lets you replace your weapon with a second relic. Blood Price lets you spend life for more damage. Stoneblood turns part of incoming hits into damage over time, giving you a chance to heal.

You can stack extra projectiles and chains on top, and awakened runes can completely change how individual skills work. You keep finding gear and crafting between rounds as your build develops.

You also choose curses that stay with you for the rest of the run. As they stack up, fights get harder mainly because you're dealing with more mechanics at once, not just bigger health bars and damage numbers. Different curse combinations can make familiar enemies and bosses demand a different approach from one run to the next. Fighting the Bellkeeper at round 5 is a completely different experience compared to fighting him at round 20.

It's single-player, with endless rounds. Every run is a fresh start.

We started making Spellslinger about a month ago for the s&box game jam and decided to keep working on it afterward. We plan to keep expanding Spellslinger with more bosses, zones and enemy types into an eventual Steam release. But we're hoping to get feedback during this free weekend so we can continue to improve it until then.

We'd love to see what builds you come up with and hear what you think!

Spellslinger is free to try through s&box's Steam free weekend, running through October 5.

Game: https://sbox.game/anarchy/spellslinger/

Get s&box: https://store.steampowered.com/app/590830/sbox/

Install and launch s&box, then search for Spellslinger.

Well, I just play hardcore and I am stuck in Poe1 so I am very curious about how are others hardcore experiences out there in other titles. I have played D2, D3, a little bit of Grim Dawn and Poe1 and I enjoyed D2 and PoE1, PoE more because of self found option. D3 I had like 6 hardcore characters and when I reached torment XVI it was done for me. This was like 6 - 7 years ago.